A Quote by Gina Haspel
After years of failure, I do think that President Trump has shown a lot of wisdom in reaching out his hand to the North Korean leader and to suggest to them that there might be a different future for the North Korean people.
Related Quotes
I don't think the North Korean leadership is interested in a genuine deal to end their WMD programs or their stranglehold on the North Korean people.
I watched a lot of documentaries about North Korean defectors. I also practiced speaking in a North Korean accent with a teacher, and studied a lot.
Beijing cannot sit by and let her North Korean ally be bombed, nor can it allow U.S. and South Korean forces to defeat the North, bring down the regime, and unite the peninsula, with U.S. and South Korean soldiers sitting on the Yalu, as they did in 1950 before Mao ordered his Chinese army into Korea.
North Korean defectors who speak out against the regime always feel nervous. We never know what the North Korean government is planning. It's really difficult for us to show our faces and speak out, but we feel obligated to do something to inform people about the ongoing tragedy inside North Korea.
I believe President Trump is more reasonable than he is generally perceived. President Trump uses strong rhetoric toward North Korea, but during the election campaign, he also said he could talk over a burger with Kim Jong-un. I am for that kind of pragmatic approach to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue.
So South Korean ability is very much limited to handle North Korean, you know, difficulties. So we don't want to see an immediate collapse of the North Korea regime.
I think the regime in North Korea is more fragile than people think. The country's economic system remains desperate, and one thing that could happen for example would be under a new government in South Korea, to get the South Korean government to live up to its own constitution, which says any Korean who makes it to South Korea, is a Korean citizen. A citizen of the Republic of Korea. And you could imagine the impact that would have inside North Korea if people thought, "If I could get out and make it to South Korea, I could have a different life."
When the [US] president writes to Kim Jong Il, the son, the Dear Leader, he doesn't call him Dear Mr President, he calls him Dear Mr Secretary. Have you ever noticed that? Why is that? Because he's not the president of North Korea, he's the head of the Communist Party, the North Korean Workers' Party and he's the head of the Army. He's not head of the state. The head of the state is his father, who's been dead for 15 years.
My parents fled from North Korea during the Korean War because they despised the North Korean Communist regime. They fled to seek freedom and came to South Korea.
South Koreans often don't think of North Korean defectors as Korean. While we have been granted citizenship, the locals don't consider us as South Korean citizens. We are often treated differently and viewed differently, even by people who care for us the most.
In China, it was hard living as a young girl without my family. I had no idea what life was going to be like as a North Korean refugee. But I soon learned it's not only extremely difficult, it's also very dangerous, since North Korean refugees are considered in China as illegal migrants.
So if North Korea continues present isolation, then with such economic difficulties the North Korean government must meet a very serious situation in the future.
It is natural for us to pay attention to North Korea and human rights issues of North Korean defectors but I wish people would not try to create stars. The reality is different from Hollywood movies.
The North Korean Communists are implacably pursuing their military buildup in defiance of the international trend toward rapprochement and of the stark reality of the Korean situation, as well as of the long-cherished aspiration of the 50 million Koreans. The North Koreans have already constructed a number of underground invasion tunnels across the Demilitarized Zone.
I myself hate the communist North Korean system. That doesn't mean I should let the people in the North suffer under an oppressive regime.
We must embrace the North Korean people as part of the Korean nation, and to do that, whether we like it or not, we must recognize Kim Jong-un as their ruler and as our dialogue partner.
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